Juniper Will Get Rid Of 3% Of Its Workers After Delivering A Good Quarter
Juniper said its third quarter, which ended on Sept. 30, came in with earnings per share at 33 cents, versus analysts' expectation of 31 cents. Revenue was $1.19 billion when Wall Street was looking for $1.17 billion.
But next quarter, revenue will come in between $1.2 billion and $1.23 billion, a lower range than the number analysts wanted: $1.23 billion.
So Johnson slashed jobs, though he didn't say how much money he expected to save by eliminating 280 people.
Last quarter, the company hired added 201 people and had 9,714 employees so this layoff would undo all the job growth of the last quarter. Most of those new jobs were "primarily in lower cost regions," Johnson said. That could mean India, where the company has an R&D center with about 2,300 employees with plans to grow it.
This layoff repeats, to a smaller extent, what rival Cisco did in August when it announced it would get rid of 4,000 employees, or about 5% of its workforce, starting in the first quarter of 2014, after a good quarter.
Juniper's stock is down 5% today.